Between Darkness and Light
by Sweetie
Summary: After years apart, they meet again. (Sexis)
1. Default Chapter

Title: Between Darkness and Light  
Author: Sweetie  
Summary: After years apart, they meet again.  
Rating: PG  
Author's Notes: I started this a while ago and I'm just getting around to working on it. I'd like to say part two is going to be posted soon, but last time I did that, it definitely didn't get posted soon. So it'll be posted when it's posted. :)  
Feedback: will be read an obsessive amount of times and greatly, greatly appreciated.   
  
  
There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning.  
  
  
Alexis had walked into Sal's Used Car Dealership thinking she'd entered a living cliché. The cars in the lot looked like they were slapped together with Elmer's Glue and shoe polish, the overly friendly dealer was stocky, short, complete with comb over and dressed in a suit straight from 1976. His shoes were shined and when he smiled, his forehead creased in the oddest of ways. She immediately got a weird feeling about the whole place. But, of course, she remained quiet. Jake was practically bursting with excitement.  
  
She'd met Jake Warner four years ago. He was seventeen, doe-eyed and spike-haired. A few days after she'd moved to Washington, she'd ordered a pizza. He was the pizza guy. Their friendship was based on that simple fact, and that alone. A bond based on the fact that he was her primary source of nourishment that grew into the weirdest friendship she'd ever formed. The closest thing to any conventional term she could place to it was Jake was like the little brother she never had.  
  
She'd bought a car that day, much to her dismay. Jake convinced her it would be all for the best. Cost efficient. They both knew that Alexis had enough money to buy two new cars and possibly put in a pool, but Jake wanted to help. He wanted to feel important or useful, or whatever. So Alexis humored him. What harm could possibly come of it?  
  
A month later, Alexis was choking on a cloud of smoke as it rose from underneath the hood. The brand-new-previously-owned-but-still-in-perfect-conditon-Sal's-guarantee- car, as the crinkly fore headed dealer had so eloquently put it, had stalled. On the highway. She'd barely had enough time to pull over into the breakdown lane before it went dead. She coughed, waved her hand and tried to clear it enough so   
  
"Okay."   
  
Alexis pressed the speed dial for Jake's cell.   
  
"Warner," he answered, his voice uncharacteristically cool and professional.  
  
Alexis sighed in relief. "Since when do you answer the phone like that?"  
  
"Didn'tcha hear? My new unattainable goal of the week is to become an FBI agent."  
  
"That's great. My car stalled."  
  
"Oh no."  
  
"Oh yes."  
  
"Where are you?"   
  
  
  
Alexis rested her forehead against the passenger side window of Jake's Volkswagen while Jake drove and Kristina slept. Silence enveloped the space except for every once and a while when Jake would tap his fingers against the steering wheel, and even then it was barely noticeable. Alexis was used to it. Jake always seemed as if he had too much energy for his body to contain, and he would let little bursts out here and there with the tapping of his fingers. Or bouncing his leg up and down. He never drank soda, or coffee, or anything with caffeine. His friends and family were thankful.  
  
As they drove she watched the trees blur past, tinted gray by night. They'd been driving for a while and Alexis could tell by the slight bend in the road that they were nearing her house. She'd never really imagined herself ever owning a house until after Kristina was born. To be fair, she'd never really imagined doing a lot of things until after Kristina was born. Seriously attempting to cook, not constantly thinking about work or something work related, and other things.  
  
Severing ties with friends and family to move across country, perhaps.  
  
She never trusted Carly to keep Kristina's paternity secret. It was always floating somewhere in the back of her mind, the knowledge that eventually something would break Carly and the delicately constructed façade that they had created would fall through like a house of cards. It was inevitable. Sooner or later, Carly would look into Sonny's eyes and decide that the life of a child could and should be sacrificed for her husband's happiness.   
  
The blinker blinked suddenly, breaking Alexis from her reverie. Jake turned left and began down the street that led to the house. Alexis sat up, quietly gathering her stuff. He parked the car in front of the lawn and pulled the keys from the ignition. Wordlessly they both stepped from outside, Alexis wrapping her arms around her waist to guard from the chill in the air. She watched Jake as he gently scooped Kristina up in his arms and carried her to the front porch. Alexis smiled as she unlocked the door, holding it open as he moved past her and up the stairs to Kristina's room.   
  
Alexis flicked on the lights and threw her keys on the kitchen table. She dropped her briefcase, headed through the short hall to the living room, and checked her machine for messages. Not at all surprised when there were none, she pulled off her heels and placed them off to the side.  
  
The house was small. Two floors, two bedrooms, one bathroom. Big enough for her and Kristina because that was all the space they needed. It was modestly decorated with a few personal touches, plush furniture and no sharp edges. Practical but still somewhat stylish. Comfortable.  
  
She sat down on the couch, exhaling a breath of exhaustion. She closed her eyes. She barely had time to gather her thoughts before Jake bounced down the stairs, his footsteps lighter than usual, cautious of Kristina's soundly sleeping form upstairs. He flashed a crooked smile at her. "Out like a light," He said. Alexis smiled back and closed her eyes again, turning into the couch. She heard him walk past her and down the hall.  
  
"Fridge is empty," She called, her voice muffled.   
  
"No it's not," the sound of his voice carried back to her with a hint of a singsong tone. "I remember distinctly," she heard him rustling through the refrigerator, "you ordering a large pizza with everything on it and a side of onion rings. Now, without the onion rings, you can usually make it about three-fourths of the way through. But with the onion rings, you get full faster and, left to choose between onion rings and pizza, you choose onion rings, leaving me with half a pizza all to myself."   
  
He triumphantly held up the pizza box only to find that no one was there to see it. Well, Alexis was there, she just wasn't coherent. He walked over to her. Putting the pizza box down on the coffee table, he reached on the back of the couch and pulled the small blanket down to cover her. "Goodnight, Alexis." He murmured.  
  
  
Golden tapestries draped from walls of deep velvet crimson. There were balconies, and seats, all accented with gold and intricate molding; a chandelier hung from the center of the dome ceiling, glittering with shards of brilliant light.   
  
She stood in a partially darkened corner with her arms crossed over her chest. Calm, her mind clear, she stood. She didn't feel as if she was waiting for anything, and yet there was nothing to see except an empty theatre. Time seemed to become immeasurable, the seconds and minutes and hours lost somewhere between the dark corners and the dazzling light of the chandelier. She didn't move. Her breathing was even, her heart steadily beating in her chest.   
  
She blinked, and he was there.  
  
The lights had dimmed and he stood beside her, shaded in half darkness, his eyes focused intently on the stage. His hair was slicked back the same way it always was, the contours of his face the same familiar structure she remembered. He wore a simple suit and tie. She didn't smile, nor did he, and neither spoke. When she looked down their fingers were intertwined. She was not surprised by this, although she expected to be. She wasn't plagued with questions, wasn't overwhelmed with feeling. She felt comfortable. Secure. She was encompassed with a feeling of familiarity that she suspected only came with years of marriage.  
  
She followed his gaze to the stage and saw a beautiful young woman standing there. Her hair was brown, a mass of flowing curls that reached down to the middle of her back, partially held up by barrettes that dazzled when the spotlight hit them right. She wore a long plum-colored dress, and her eyes were a soulful brown. She was singing a copula. Her voice was beautiful, like deep, rich chimes, and the melody she sang was haunting.   
  
"Alexis," she heard Sonny whisper, his hand gently tugging on hers. His eyes were still fixed on the girl. "Who…who is she?"  
  
"She's our daughter." She whispered it like he had just asked her to pass the milk.  
  
"Our daughter?" He whispered back, his voice thick with emotion.  
  
Her eyes remained on Kristina. "Yes."  
  
He tugged hard on her hand, forcing her to look at him. Her eyes met his and she felt as if she had been punched hard in the stomach. His face told a thousand emotions at once, and she struggled to regain her composure, fumbling over her words in confusion.  
  
"Sonny, I—"  
  
"We have a daughter and you never told me?"  
  
"I tried. Sonny, you've got to understand…"  
  
"What I understand is that you kept the one thing most precious in the world to me: a child. How could you do this? How could you keep this from me?" He whispered harshly, his voice like ice. She felt tears slipping down her cheeks.   
  
"Sonny, please, just—"  
  
"Please what? Listen to you? Forgive you?"  
  
"Let me explain." He shook his head. She grasped for his hand again, and he pulled it away. She could see the tears glistening in his eyes. "I did what I believed was best for our child, I did what—"  
  
"Don't!" He screamed.   
  
Kristina disappeared. The lights brightened.  
  
"Sonny…"  
  
He looked her square in the eye, penetrating her soul, filling her with his hate and disgust the same way she had done to him all those years ago. Then he turned and walked away.  
  
A sob escaped her. "Sonny…" She called for him, tried to run after him but her feet wouldn't move. She collapsed in the middle of the aisle, succumbing to her emotions. "Sonny, please. Come back." She held her hands to her chest, looked around the empty theatre.   
  
"Sonny…" 


	2. Part Two

Alexis's eyes snapped open. Her labored breathing echoed through the darkened living room, and she wiped the beads of cold sweat that had begun to form on her forehead.  
  
Dream.  
  
She lay awake in the dark for a few moments as she waited for the last remnants of sleep to fade away. Her breathing slowly returned to normal, her eyes focused, readjusted to the lack of light. The memory of the dream remained.  
  
Nightmare.  
  
She'd had it almost every night since she and Kristina left Port Charles. It, of course, had a lot to do with everything she repressed about her decision to keep their daughter from Sonny.   
  
She knew it was the right thing to do. There was no way that secret would stay a secret if she had stayed in Port Charles, and more importantly, Kristina's life was at stake. Even the possibility that she might be connected to Sonny, the slightest chance of danger…there were too many risks.  
  
But Alexis would always regret having to keep Sonny away from his daughter and Kristina away from her father.   
  
And sometimes, when her blurred memories mixed with that sense of regret, a very potent feeling of guilt settled inside her.   
  
And there he was. The Sonny she loved, the one she had clung to, created from the depths of her mind when she was desperate to believe there was something good inside of him. He was charming, and funny, warm and caring. He loved deeply and hurt even more so. If that Sonny really did exist like she had wanted him so badly to before, he would hate her for what she had done.  
  
Then she would remember that none of that mattered.  
  
The real Sonny was a cold, unfeeling, spiteful man. He was poison to everything and everyone he touched. He killed without regret and punished without reason. He was filled with hate and a taste for revenge against anyone who ever came close to crossing him. He did not deserve to have any rights regarding the life of a small child.  
  
But sometimes, on nights like these, Alexis stared up into the sky, at the moon. The same moon she and Sonny stared up into in Puerto Rico. And sometimes, as she sat there, with the memory of her Sonny and the theatre still fresh in her mind, she wondered.   
  
What if hers was the real Sonny, and the cold unfeeling man she believed was he was merely a product of her imagination, designed to help her sleep better at night?  
  
The question haunted her in the eerie confines of her dark, empty living room. During their friendship she had seen something inside of him that could not be mistaken. She would swear her life on the look in his eye, the sincerity in his voice. The way he smiled…  
  
She closed her eyes.  
  
Sonny wasn't a part of her life anymore. He hadn't been for years, and yet, she still continued to think about him, to allow herself to get pulled back into the same old tired argument over and over and over again. It didn't matter whether or not Sonny was good or bad. It didn't matter anymore whether she made the right decision or the wrong decision because the decision was made. In the past. It was not something she should think about.   
  
She sighed and looked at the clock.  
  
Especially not at three o'clock in the morning.  
  
Too tired to make the climb to her bed, Alexis turned over to her side, burrowing down into the corner of the couch until she became somewhat comfortable. She brought her knees up close to her chest, curled into a ball and shut her eyes.   
  
~*~  
  
  
Her high heels clicked on the polished linoleum floor, her presense, perceptavely cold and calm. Detached. He struggled against the handcuffs cuffed to his wrist and secured behind his back. The interrogation room was eerily quiet, still and absent of any sign of life. Except for them.  
  
He had no idea how he came to be there. He wasn't quite sure of the feeling of the handcuffs, or the odd way in which she looked at him. It was surreal. Like the surroundings had been passed through a sifter and when they came out the other side, a piece was missing; an indescribeable, almost unnoticeable element of realism.   
  
The unfounded fear inside of him felt disturbingly opposite.  
  
She continued to advance toward him. Slowly, each step, each expression, a carefully calculated tactic designed to make him suffer in his confusion. Finally she reached his chair in the corner of the room. She leaned down, her face inches from his, her breath; chillingly cool against his cheek as she whispered in his ear. "Mr. Corinthos," she said. The greeting held no emotion.  
  
He said nothing.   
  
She edged slightly away from him so she could look into his eyes.   
  
So much became encompassed in their still and steady gaze that a pregnant pause, deafening in its power, filled the room. He held his breath, tried not to betray the sense of anticipation that had arisen in him. He knew she was next to speak. He did not know what she would say.   
  
A small puff of air escaped her mouth and her lips upturned in a wry, mirthless smile. She shook her head.  
  
"You thought you could change, didn't you?"   
  
He could feel his heart implode at the execution of her words.   
  
The shattered pieces stuck in his gut, and he felt a deep, raw pain that swiftly stole the life from inside of him. The breath from his lungs. The essence of his soul, the fire that fueled his desire to live became extringuished.  
  
"Well, you certainly overestimated yourself." Alexis stood up so she could look down on him as she spoke. "Don't you know?" She paused, waited. Cruelly drew out his agony.  
  
"Men like you don't get a chance at redemption." 


	3. Part Three

I have finally updated! Hoo-rah. And for any of you who are wondering, or confused, this universe picks up before Carly got pregnant. Or Alexis killed Alcazar. So Alexis's reputation is still fairly intact and Sonny only has one living biological child.   
  
Enjoy.  
  
  
Sonny's eyes shot open in the darkness.  
  
He froze for a second, his breath caught in his throat. He couldn't move. Couldn't think, couldn't feel.  
  
Then, suddenly, he exhaled, and everything returned to normal.  
  
Nightmare.  
  
He knew the scenario like the back of his hand, every detail, from the color of the interrogation room walls to the sound of Alexis's shoes as she walked along the floor. It felt as if this dream had haunted him his entire lifetime. Truth was, it only began last week. It still scared the shit out of him every time he had it, though, and for a split second after, his conscious and unconscious mind would meet and the dream would become a reality. That was always the worst.  
  
"Sir?"   
  
He looked up, squinting in the darkness, and saw a young stewardess staring down at him.  
  
"The plane will be landing soon. Could you please put your seat in an upright position?"  
  
He nodded and adjusted his seat.  
  
"Thank you."  
  
She disappeared down the aisle.  
  
The plane was just about heading over the city, and as he looked out the window, he could see the lights glittering like fallen stars. They'd be landing soon.   
  
Alexis and his daughter were somewhere, down there, living their lives. He'd seen the photos in the file Jason had found for him. Alexis had tried hard to keep her new life a secret, but thankfully for Sonny, it wasn't enough. He, with Jason's help, managed to find them. Where they'd lived for the past four years. Where Alexis had worked, where Kristina had gone to school. The life he'd missed while he was barely living his own.  
  
Barely living was the only way he could describe the life he and Carly's relationship had left him.   
  
He had always loved Carly. Beneath everything, despite everything, he had loved her. But as quickly as day turns into night, love can turn into hate. It was breeding, festering, just below the surface, an uncontrollable emotion that threatened to overpower them.   
  
Michael was shot in a mob-related accident. Came within inches of death, but survived. AJ, the two years sober at the time, steady job, biological father with a new fiancee swooped in. Perfect timing combined with his family's money got him custody. Sonny retreated inside himself. Carly resented Sonny. Hated him for what she believed he'd caused. Using every weapon she had, she fought tooth and nail to bring him down…all while sleeping in the same bed. And a sick part of him enjoyed it.   
  
Sonny began to hate himself.   
  
He spent every day in darkness because that was all he deserved. Closed curtains. No lights. No visitors. Just the woman who lied with every breath she took. Just the woman who promised to love him as she plotted to destroy him.   
  
Unlike so many others during that time, he remembered that morning as if it were a filmstrip, hidden in the vault of his mind, taken out and viewed when need be.   
  
[[He could feel the smooth contours of the bottle of liquor in his hands, the perfect amber-yellow tint of scotch. He was lying on the couch in his pajama pants and robe. It was morning; maybe, mid morning…there were shades of sunlight sneaking past his barriers of thick black curtains, reflecting on the shards of broken glass from the night before. Or the week before. He smelled strongly of alcohol, and with each hollow breath he took, the stench seemed to increase. The smell was sweet to him. It smelled of emptiness. Of numbness. Of the lack of feeling he craved so much.   
  
Breaking the silence, then, he heard her high-heeled footsteps coming from behind him. He knew they were hers so he did not move. Staring straight off ahead, he waited. She came near to him, ran a bony finger down the side of his face, smiled that icy smile. "Hey, Hun."   
  
He grabbed her roughly by the wrist and twisted her hand away without blinking his eyes.   
  
"Dammit!" She cursed, grabbing her wrist. "What the fuck, Sonny?" She exhaled dramatically and plopped down next to him. "Look I know that you wanna hurt me. That's good, because you know I love to hurt you." She smiled the same cold smile and leaned in to kiss him. He didn't respond. Didn't even blink his eyes. She pulled away, making a face at him. "Sonny? Are you even listening?"  
  
He was. He could hear her, see her, feel her. Everything. He just chose to ignore her.  
  
"God." She stood up, her hands on her hips. "I was just going to say I didn't feel like playing tonight, all right? I'm having dinner with someone. They actually think I'm stable." She laughed despite herself, pulled a hair away from her face. "They don't know about us." She stood and was silent for a moment. He remembered looking into her eyes. Deep, brown, almond eyes.  
  
He wondered where she'd hidden the razors.   
  
Then he remembered the broken glass.  
  
"Maybe later I'll be back, ok? Sonny?" She rolled her eyes. "Forget it." She looked him up and down one more time, shaking her head.  
  
Her high heels again. Clicking against the floor. They were slow. Incomprehensibly slow. He felt a shifting deep inside him, long and slow, on the verge, like teetering over a cliff but having the time to count every grain of rock beneath you.   
  
It broke with the sound of her voice. "What the hell is this?"   
  
He turned his head and saw her pick up a manila file folder off the ground. She looked at it curiously. She began to open it.   
  
"No." he said, his voice rough. She was surprised to hear him speak, and in her surprise, obeyed his wishes. Carly walked over to Sonny and handed him the file.   
  
"Well? Are you gonna open it, or what?"  
  
He did. Slowly and carefully, his fingers trembling. The first thing he saw was a picture. Lying on top of a thin pile of pages filled with small, printed words. The words meant nothing to him, yet. The picture was a Polaroid. At first, he couldn't quite make out the shapes, the faces. He picked it up out of the folder and brought it closer to his face, squinted his eyes.  
  
"What, Sonny? Who is it?"   
  
It was a little girl with brown wavy hair and dark, chocolate eyes.   
  
His heart caught.   
  
"Sonny?"  
  
She was standing with whom he immediately identified as her mother: Alexis. He flipped the picture over, read the inscription.  
  
Alexis and Kristina, May '06  
  
As he went through the motions he felt the underlying sense of shock, coursing through him, unnoticed, until he looked up and saw the world around him. He became confused. "What…" he murmured.  
  
"Sonny, what is going on?"  
  
The file. He placed the picture aside and began to read. There were scientific terms, data, complicated expressions he didn't quite grasp in his state. He read on. Rushed. The urgency within him rose and he flipped through the pages. And then, there it was. Like a beacon of light calling to him through the darkness, highlighted in electric green.   
  
…Conclusively show Michael Corinthos, Jr. as father…]]  
  
  
It was Jason who had found the papers. Jason knew the only way Sonny would get better was if he had something to get better for. Someone. Jason wasn't enough, Courtney wasn't enough, but his daughter was, and Jason knew that. The honest truth had been weaved into an intricate tapestry of lies and he did everything he could to uncover it, laboring just under the suspicion, the small chance that Alexis's daughter was Sonny's.   
  
Jason found the truth, and it saved Sonny.  
  
Sonny reached in his suitcase, pulled out the picture. Alexis and Kristina, smiling softly, standing on the porch of a house he'd never seen. There were trees and flowers, the sun was shining, Alexis had her arms around Kristina. They both looked happy. Happier than he could have ever made them.   
  
He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. Their happiness was a factor he, of course, took in to account, but in the end selfishness ran out. He couldn't continue to live his life with the knowledge that they were out there and not go looking for them. He had to; it was an impulse, a current, drawing him to them. He had to go to his family.   
  
What happened then, Sonny thought, remained questionable.   
It was seven thirty a.m. and the Davis household was in complete anarchy.  
  
Mornings were never a good time. Kristina had trouble waking up, Alexis had trouble making breakfast, the only meal of the day incapable of being ordered out, and all around, nothing ever really seemed to go right. That statement was never truer then on that particular morning.  
  
Alexis's nightmares made any real sleep incomprehensible, and she was left up until all hours of the night, ordering useless products off mind-numbing infomercials. She woke up to the sound of Jake knocking on the door. He was set to pick her up for work. He felt guilty over the break down of the car he pressured her to buy.   
  
Alexis woke up Kristina, got her dressed, plopped her at the kitchen table, and set off to get ready. Kristina sat there, her feet swinging, an empty bowl in front of her and a pink plastic spoon in her hand. Both the cereal and milk were just out of her reach.  
  
"Mommy!"   
  
"Kristina, Sweetheart," Alexis called from somewhere in the house, "do you think it would be possible for you to hold that thought for a moment, please? Mommy is late, late, late, and Mommy's boss finds lateness 'utterly reprehensible' and will proceed to lower Mommy's caseload, which means no deluxe edition cappuccino maker for me and no Crayola Paint Set for you."  
  
Kristina turned toward Jake who was sitting on the counter.   
  
"What does rep, rep…rehesble mean?"  
  
He hopped down, smiled at Kristina and reached for the box of Lucky Charms. "Well," he said as he began to pour, "Reprehensible means it's worth punishment. But that's only because Mommy's boss is an asshole."   
  
"Asshole?"  
  
Jake nodded and got the milk. "And when I become an FBI agent, Kris, you and me are gonna arrest him. We'll see how concerned with lateness he is when he's in federal custody." Kristina smiled, satisfied with Jake's explanation and happy to have her cereal. Jake ruffled her hair. "Be right back, Kiddo."   
  
He walked down the hall after Alexis, whistling, a bounce in his step. "Alexis?" He looked in the living room and saw the bottom half of Alexis sticking out from underneath the couch. "I thought I fed that couch this morning." Jake deadpanned.   
  
"Ha, ha." Came her muffled reply. She scrambled out, a high heel in her hand, her hair sticking in every direction.   
  
"Whoa."   
  
"Shut. Up."   
  
She wandered off to the bathroom.  
  
"Well, somebody's running low on their witty comebacks this morning."   
  
"I had to proportion the comeback's amount of wit in relation to its insult."  
  
"C'mon, the tone on that whoa captured more than anything witty I could have said."  
  
He dodged as a rubber ducky came flying at his head.   
  
Alexis stepped out a few moments later, hair and makeup done, looking as cool and professional as always. She smiled at Jake as she picked the ducky off the floor and tossed it in the bathroom. She walked into the kitchen with Jake on her heels. "Kris, Sweetie, you all set to go?"  
  
"Mommy," Kristina was perched up on the counter, sitting on her legs, looking out the window.   
  
"C'mon, get down. Time to go." Alexis reached for Kristina. Kristina swatted Alexis's hands away.  
  
"Mommy, there's a man outside."   
  
Alexis peaked out the window quickly. She could only see the back of his head. "Huh," she said, "must be a delivery guy. Infomercials really are quite persuasive. Only after extreme sleep deprivation, of course."   
  
She walked over to the door. Unlocked it, swung it open.   
  
And standing in front of her was Sonny Corinthos. 


	4. Part 4a

Thanks for the replies. I really, really, appreciate them, and they definitely serve as a motivator. Which is why I'm sort of...rewarding you. So instead of waiting extra long for a long chapter, you get a shorter one sooner.   
  
Oh, and I suspect you won't be happy with the Sexis contact in this one. The next chapter's gonna make up for that. :) I'm such a tease, heh heh.  
  
Her first thought was that this was some horrible nightmare. Perhaps she had fallen asleep on the couch, tired, and dreamed some sort of incredibly lucid dream. It was more plausible than the sight of him actually standing on her doorstep.  
  
"Alexis?"  
  
He spoke, and it sent the truth swimming through her veins, pumping ice-cold shock through her body, until she was frozen to the spot. Unable to speak. Unable to breathe.  
  
She swallowed, blinked. Her thoughts were floating buoys on an ocean of anxiety. She struggled to grab one long enough to speak.   
  
"Sonny? What are you…how did you…"  
  
"It's good to see you, Alexis."  
  
She could barely comprehend what he was saying.   
  
She studied his face. Found a peculiar sense of sincerity there. Dismissed it. "What are you…" She began again. But the question answered itself, and the heavy weight of dread descended upon her. "You want Kristina." She deducted, her voice surprisingly controlled. "You're not getting within a foot of her. I suggest you turn around and head directly back to Port Charles."  
  
"I want to talk to you."  
  
"You don't just talk. You manipulate. You destroy. Simply talking is not within your range of capabilities."  
  
He didn't speak for a moment. Sonny closed his eyes, breathed in a deep breath. "Please, Alexis. Be reasonable. I came all this way, don't shut me out."  
  
"Reasonable is not something I have a record of being in your presence, but this is the exception. I want you to leave."  
  
"I know I'm her father."  
  
Her eyes held nothing. She had suspected as much the moment she saw his face. She had just prayed to God it wasn't the case… they both understood the implications. Now that he knew Kristina was his, he would never let go.  
  
"I want to work something out."   
  
"No."  
  
He exhaled as he reached inside his coat pocket. "You change your mind, you can find me here." He handed her a folded piece of off white paper. He turned, walked to his car, drove away.   
  
As he disappeared around the corner, she found herself musing on control, fate, and the other aspects of life that she could never get a handle on.   
  
"So he murdered your sister."  
  
"Indirectly. It's complicated."  
  
"Understatement of the year."  
  
Alexis absently swirled the glass of soda leftover from dinner in her hand. "Century." She replied. Jake shrugged. She cleared her throat. "So now I suspect you're thinking a myriad of things, one of which being, 'What is the easiest way to explain to this woman she is a nutcase and I have no desire to associate with her whatsoever?'"  
  
He laughed lightly, softly, the candlelight near him flickering. "Actually it was closer to, 'How can I get a book deal and publish this story while still remaining friends with aforementioned nutcase?'" She chuckled. "Oh, you don't think I'm serious? Listen to this: The Lawyer and the Mobster. Change the names; advertise it to the soap opera watching crowd, and before you know it I'm on the beach sipping Pina Coladas." She rolled her eyes. "C'mon, no one would even for a split second think it was true."  
  
"You certainly have a point there."  
  
Silence fell between them briefly.   
  
"Alexis?" Jake asked. His gray blue eyes darkened, seriousness replacing familiar carefree irreverence.   
  
"Yes."  
  
"You going to talk to him?"  
  
"I don't really see how I have a choice."  
  
"What? Are you kidding me?"  
  
"A part of me is afraid of him and what he is capable of. But you should try and understand that there's a larger part that knows, logically, he would never physically hurt me. Well, directly physically hurt me."   
  
"You must not be thinking rationally here. Were you not present for the last half hour of conversation?"  
  
"Fine, Jake. Think of it this way. If he wanted to kill me, he could have accomplished that much more efficiently by sending someone out here to do it for him."  
  
"Gee, thanks. All my fears have been alleviated. Good luck with the cold blooded killer, I guess I'll see you around."  
  
"Stop being melodramatic."  
  
"Melodra—" He stopped himself. Took the tinge of outrage out of his voice. "You're not being dramatic enough."  
  
"You weren't there. You can't possibly understand the dynamic between Sonny and I. We can barely understand it ourselves."  
  
"You're right. I wasn't there. Yeah, I'm young and stupid and naïve, blah, blah, blah. I can't say this with sounding like it. But ever since I met you…I've kind of thought of you as, you know, some mysterious person with a past they were running from."  
  
"Jake…"  
  
"You were running for a reason, Alexis." 


End file.
